The Graveyard of Crap I Need To Rewrite

Haha. I’ve come to conclusion that I am being haunted by old projects, so I’m going to talk about what is haunting me and my plan to remedy this situation.

Anything that I wrote before 2007 is off the table. This isn’t to say that I’ll never rewrite any of those. I’m only saying that none of those projects are haunting me. Also off the table are any partially finished projects. Most of these are not far enough along to haunt me anyway, and I don’t really consider them to be “unfinished.” They’re more like “ideas-in-progress.” Unfinished to me means I left loose ends everywhere, and ideas-in-progress don’t have loose ends.

What’s on the table are projects that I finished or almost finished and can’t get out of my head for whatever reason. I have five projects written between 2008 and August 2013 that I’m open to rewriting, but none of them are anything that I feel compelled to do anything with either.

2013 – “Winter” (ya supernatural horror) – THIS must get rewritten. I didn’t have enough guts to pull off the content before, but I’m game for it now. ^_^ There are currently some subplot things that I’m still wary of, like I feel like it’s ridiculous, but everything makes sense in my head, so I consider this ready to go. 😀 This has been haunting me because I quit it 6 chapters from the end. I knew I was going to have to start over from the beginning, so there was no point in finishing it, but it’s been 5.5 years!

2014 – “Discord” (ya paranormal) – This story has haunted the crap out of me. I loved this so damn much and second-guessed myself to the point of wrecking it, and it killed me. I tried writing a send off post for it earlier this year actually, but I deleted it, because I don’t want to let it go. So the solution is to go back to what I was going to write before I changed it, and then wing it like I planned. It’s still kind of rough going, but I can work with it.

2014 – “Raven” aka “Behind Stone and Shadows” (ya supernatural horror) – This was a mess. I was so obsessed with the ending, that I didn’t pay enough attention to anything before the climax. I’ve been brainstorming a rewrite of this for a while because this story just won’t let me go. There’s a POV change for sure, like a different main character, and I’ve gone back and forth on how much of the original plot is still useful, but I decided to just wing it. I know where the rewrite starts, and if I start in the right place, it’ll be fine. So this is also ready to go.

2016 – “The Inescapable” (contemporary mythological fantasy) – I knew pretty early on that I was going to have to rewrite this, but I had some mad scientist stuff that I was trying out, and I was having so much fun, so I just saw it through to the end. Basically, I need to go back to my original idea for it and embrace the Greek mythology. I attempted to create my own, for no good reason really, but I got too wrapped up in it, and the plot suffered, and honestly, it makes no sense. Lol! So, Greek mythology it is, which is something I love, so there was no reason to do what I did. This is ready to go. 😀

2017 – “The Puppet Box” (supernatural horror) – This story has given me so much stress at this point that I don’t know if I can salvage it, but I’m going to try one more time. I have some tentative plans right now that are pretty out there, and I think I finally know what the MC wants, but we’ll see. I’m not holding my breath. It makes sense, for the most part, in my head, but I’m really thinking this whole thing might just be a dud.

So, five projects haunting me. That’s not so bad. Lol! If I could get all of these redone, minus “The Puppet Box,” in the next two years, I think that would definitely help my brain. I’ve finally learned now to rewrite stuff from complete scratch, as in no notes or scenes from previous versions, and rewriting these stories from scratch is 100% necessary to get all the lingering crud out. ^_^

I don’t currently have an official hierarchy, but “Winter,” which fun fact takes place late fall and needs a new working title but whatever, is currently in 1st place. “The Puppet Box” is obviously in last place. My goal is to check back in with that after I rewrite everything else and see if it’ll go anywhere. I can wait. Everything else will have to duke it out for second place. But who knows, I may know exactly what I want to do after I rewrite “Winter.” 😀

8 Responses to The Graveyard of Crap I Need To Rewrite

Goodness, so many past projects! You have unfinished business with them. I have some ideas I might go back to at some point (that Victorian idea) but anything before that is definitely in the drawer, done, no more.

Wow. You have a full platter of things to do! I have 2 such stories, but that’s it. And I’m not touching either of those much until, at least, the first book of the YA series I’m working on is out in the querying world. But I understand never really killing most stories. Who knows when the ideas might blossom into something usable?

You must be my writing twin! I just went through my load of old junk stories (and look through some ancient journals) and started making plans for which ones might make the cut for the fall/winter cycle. I chose four to peruse in August, meaning I hope to get 3,000 more words on each of them, kick them around for a while (not literally), do some character vignettes, make partial outlines I’ll probably ignore, and then decide on just one for the whole month of September. (I’m not ready for that painful decision yet.) I have a “it should be done, I thought it was done” project that I think needs five more chapters – agh! Yet, this was the conclusion of two alpha readers so I can’t just ignore them entirely. I have a fantasy set in an old world (world of my first trilogy), a SF book that will not be named just now, and a non-fiction book that I think will be something I poke at for the next 12 months – adding a few words to the petri dish of doom on a regular basis. (And there’s three other projects wailing for my attention sporadically – but they have to wait at least until winter – “sends ideas to corner.”)
And, then there’s that short story … hmm. Well, it might get a weekend for a fling. 🙂